IMPACT OF SHAW’S NETWORK OF ENTERPRISE

 In studying cases of exceptional creativity, Gruber (1974/1981, 1989)has found that the creative person’s network of enterprise is a useful con-struct, representing the creative person’s purpose and distinctive point ofview over time. The network of enterprise consists of ongoing, long-termactivities that develop as interlocking systems so that changes in one partof the system ultimately affect the rest of the system.Shaw’s intellectual and creative development after the war is a particu-larlygoodexampleofGruber’sconceptoftheinterdependenceofacreativeperson’s enterprises. The frustration that Shaw encountered in advancingtheideashehaddevelopedinhiswarenterpriseledtotwoplays,HeartbreakHouse(1919d) andBack to Methuselah(1921/1977). InHeartbreak Househelooked back, saw his own contributions to the problems he had defined andreframed those problems as broadly human, rather than simply political.Those changes in his political perspective reinvigorated another important

 Shavian concept, creative evolution. Shaw contended that Nature, as lifeforce, was driven to improve itself through humanity. This philosophy wasa remix of the 19th-century scripts for religion, progress and evolution. Likea Hegelian God, Nature realized itself through its creation. Furthermore,the 19th-century faith in progress was preserved. By choosing Lamark’stheory of evolution, instead of Darwin’s, however, Shaw replaced the blindstruggle for survival with a drive to perfection. He replaced Darwinian warwith Nietzschean will.Before WWI, Shaw’s most extensive treatment of his idea of the lifeforce was in the playMan and Superman(1903/1942) and its preface. Shawexpanded on this philosophy withBack to Methuselah(1921/1977) a play infive parts, plus a preface. The second part of the play portrayed an informal,drawing-room meeting among politicians and scientists after WWI. There,Shaw laid out the need for humanity to evolve to a state where it doesnot act so childishly to such tragic ends. The solution: the human life spanneeded to be prolonged to at least 300 years so that people could, in effect,grow up within their lifetimes. The next three parts of the play portrayedthat evolution occurring. Shaw, thereby, continued his consideration of theirony of “Nature’s Long Credits” (see Table 2) and how it could be avoided.In the highest ironic tradition,Methuselahwas at once fanciful and deadlyserious.

 IRONY’S MANY LIVES 

So far, I have focused on the structure of Shaw’s ironic thinking andthe internal dynamic of that thought. The external dynamic is, of course,also critical to the story. Shaw’s overt description of ironic situations maybe relatively clear evidence of his perceptions.Heperceived irony in thesituations he described, but, despite his efforts, most of his readers did not.Wells’ (1914) description ofCommon Senseas “distorting, discredit-ing, confusing” (p. 6) was a clear indication that the irony Shaw perceivedwas not evident to Wells. Fellow author Henry Arthur Jones publishedan open letter to Shaw in response toCommon Sensethat included thetirade: “Mischief was your midwife and Misrule your nurse, and Unrea-son brought you up at her feet—no other ancestry and rearing had you”(Weintraub, 1971, p. 60). This circumstance went beyond the cases thatHutcheon (1994) has analyzed and to which cognitive psychologists havegiven much attention—cases where an audience does notgetthe irony. By1914 Shaw was famous throughout the world. H. G. Wells was particu-larly familiar with the Shavian style. Wells first heard Shaw speak on astreet corner in the 1880s, and had been a member of the Fabian Society

 from 1903–1908 (Ervine, 1956). Furthermore, Shaw’s intentions were wellmarked in his texts. Still, many in Shaw’s audience saw his descriptions asdistortion, confusion and unreason—not ironic insight.Today’s appreciation (with hindsight) of Shaw’s ironic perceptions isalso evidence of irony’s external dynamic—the role that the audience playsin determining whether or not irony “happens.” The difference between1914 and the beginning of the 21st century is not just that we have greaterironic sensibility, although we may. We no doubt miss much of Shaw’scovert irony because we lack the sophistication of readers who were fol-lowing the news and hearing everyday rumors as the war unfolded. Wemiss much of the sharpness of Shaw’s ironic edge as well. For example, theportrayal of Sir Edward Grey asalazon, bungling English diplomacy lead-ing to the war, was explicit inCommon Sense. Today, we get Shaw’s point,but for us Grey is abstract, rather than a specific person. He is notourleader. We do not feel the edge of the irony as we might if we were Englishin 1914. The 1914 audience felt the force of the ironic reframing much moreacutely as an attack on their leadership when theywere“scared out of theirwits,” going into the war. Without our historical distance, Shaw’s originalaudience was extremely sensitive to irony’s edge, and—ironically—thatmade it difficult to contemplate

 LESSONSThe external dynamic of irony means that this research is itself anartifact of the 20th-century legacy of irony. As Fussell (1975/2000) has con-tended, the Great War may have contributed significantly to current ironicpoints of view, but there have also been other contributions. Americanshave had Vietnam to undercut ouralazony. Our sense of irony has been in-fluenced by other factors as well, ranging from 19th-century Romanticism(Muecke, 1969) to 20th-century post-modernism (Hutcheon, 1988) and cur-rent media culture (Baudrillard, 1983/1993; de Zengotita, 2002). Still, weare faced with the fact that, in studying Shaw’s irony, we are in realitystudying a relationship between his intent and the points of view of ourown culture and time. Within that reality, what do we learn?After the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001,journalist Roger Rosenblatt (2001) declared “the death” of the irony ofAmerican intellectuals for whom, he contended, “nothing was to be be-lieved in or taken seriously. Nothing was real. With a giggle and a smirk,our chattering classes—our columnists and pop culture makers—declaredthat detachment and personal whimsy were the necessary tools for anoh-so-cool life. Who but a slobbering bumpkin would think, ‘I feel your